No, you haven't. They might have found temporarity stability, but they have not overcome them, and they will resurface.

Strong, emotionally healthy people generally choose not to be in relationships with people with a PD. Co-dependent people, on the other hand, love BPDs and NPDs. Also, people with these problems aren't capable of loving in the same way as healthy people. Their own emotional needs overwhelm everything else and make it impossible for them to see anyone else as anything other than an extension of themselves to fulfill their own needs. Loving someone incapable of reciprocating is a very bad idea.

I spent years working in adolescent mental health and I have a lot of experience working with teens diagnosed with BPD. The BPDs were the kids who were the most challenging and by far the ones with whom we experienced the least amount of success with their treatment. Attachment disorders, children of drug addicted/alcoholic parents, learning disorders, hyperactivity all paled in comparison to the BPDs. The only other diagnosis that was comparatively challenging was Fetal Alcohol Syndrome but that's a different kettle of fish.

The most difficult aspect of trying to work with these individuals is the manipulation. They are always working to pit therapists against residential staff against parents - if you don't have a strong therapeutic team with family completely on board the success rate is going to be close to zero. It's constant lies and everything is to be blamed on someone else - they rarely take ownership of their behaviour and any attempt to hold them accountable usually escalates the other behaviours.. They were also the group we had to be the most hypervigilant around with boundaries as they were the most likely to make false allegations of physical or sexual abuse against residential staff or other professionals involved in their treatment.

Truthsayer is wrong and I don't buy his anecdotal evidence for second, it's convenient that he has known all these BPDs long enough to watch them battle their disorder and come out the other side victorious. The reality is that the prognosis is grim.

If a BPD self-heals she probably wasn't really BPD to begin with, maybe BPD-Lite at worst.

My research area is attachment, which is why I'm familiar with BPD.

It would be interesting on a professional level to hear some of your stories, I can't imagine a population more challenging for most professionals to work with except possibly sex offenders (and they are obviously challenging for completely different reasons). When you read case files of therapists taking multiple years just to get BPD clients to turn in their self-mutilation equipment it's pretty eye opening about just how entrenched and destructive it can be.

Don't get her pregnant. Please.

So many dickheads in this thread. It's embarassing. OP, this is why you don't listen to people on the internet.
So, I did some more reading. It is clear that I you are an absolute dickhead who should not be saying anything about the subject. This is your statement:

What you said is nonsense. You are stating that things
a) Are extremely unlikely to be true and
b) You have no evidence for

This is from a study summary cited by the National Institute of Mental Health:

Subtext: You're an idiot who doesn't know what you're talking about.

Subtext: You're an idiot who doesn't know what you're talking about. So these people were all on therapy? Well, no:

Review your statements above that she will not get better without therapy, and realize they have no scientific basis.

You have conclusively proven to be an idiot holding forth on a topic where you haven't even read the basic research, and merely absorbed the unscientific folk wisdom and blurted it forth as if it was fact (and even held to it when challenged to provide a study).

This is someone's life you're messing with. Know what you're talking about before you speak.

Remission rates are good. From another well cited study, although "most" of these were in therapy (the study oddly doesn't qualify how many):

Monstrous fail. You are majorly wrong on all the bolded points.

Is therapy likely to help above baseline? Absolutely, and probably significantly. It's a great idea, although little research been done on therapy vs normal untreated remission (which is probably significant as it is in most other non psychotic disorders). Are these statements true?

No, they are complete bull****, and you are idiot for a) believing them b) saying them and c) continuing to say them after you were challenged for evidence.

Please don't become a therapist, at least without becoming a bit more humble about what you know and don't. You can do real damage to people by holding forth authoritatively on things you have no clue about.

This. Yeah, Op just upgrade. Totally not worth dragging this thing out, the repercussions could be serious if you stay with her.

o snap

Some of the strongest emotionally healthy people are going to choose to be in relationships with people who need the strongest emotionally healthy people. But like I said, OP probably has a PD too and needs to be in therapy. I hope these love birds can find their balance.

And BPD can love. They aren't NPD. And even NPD can love, they just are different.

Out of curiosity, how many years of school to specialize in PDs if I wanted to? 12?

Truthsayer, let's choose a meaningful time frame for the relationship, like 5 years, which is generous. Within that 5 years, OP would want his girlfriend to fix herself without professional intervention. Where, in anything that you cited, is there evidence that she has a decent chance of achieving that on her own?
By the time the 5 years is up he'll be the one needing the treatment anyway, if he's still alive at that point.

Well, if you would select that as your specialization, that would be the focus of your research and internships for your masters on up.

Minimum (usually) 5-6 years to get your Ph.D. from your bachelors. If you got that in Clinical Psychology, you'd then look at a post doc with a clinic that specializes in personality disorder treatment. Probably another couple years post doc to be considered an expert (or at least very solid clinically) in treatment in that field, but you'd be doing some work with in the first few years (internship) and your elective classes would focus on areas most likely to come up (like learning about dialectic behavior therapy as opposed to art therapy).

I'm at work now but I can put a few a few stories together this evening when I have a little more time. My area of expertise is adolescents but the old adage of the apple doesn't far fall from the tree is very true. The majority of the time if you have a damaged child you have damaged parents which makes the treatment for borderline kids especially difficult. If the family isn't going to follow through with the treatment strategies and allow the child to undermine your role then you're not going to get very far and you will find yourself spending all of your time putting out fires (and bpds are exceptional arsonists) instead of doing deeper, meaningful work.

There are a some exceptions where good, well meaning parents have children with behavioral issues through absolutely no fault of their own. The most common is in cases of adoption where the new parents are inheriting the damage done by the biological family. Still challenging of course but at least you will usually have good treatment partners in the parents.

The latter feels like it because almost all human beings are unable to distinguish between expressions of caring and love that come from a warm genuine heart, and the synthetic mimicry that comes from a genuine NPD.
The biggest risk those in relationships with them face, and this starts at the first date, is not being able to see the deceit and manipulation for what it is. If they could take a magic pill and find themselves in the NPD's head while that 'loving caring' is going on, they would pack and leave immediately. There is no heart behind it. It is part of the scheme to gain control, and when the victim's guard is down again, they strike, ruthlessly.
You can unmask them 'scientifically'....look at them when they are at their worst, listen to their words, note it all carefully. No one capable of that kind of filth would be capable of the real love and charm which they try to 'sell'. It's impossible. That's how you know you are sold a lie.
The very worst situation you can be in with them is this wishy-washy half way house where you kind of tolerate them, for the good times. You're being deceived. Grab your things and run.

But one less now.

I would definitely recommend washing your hands of an NPD btw unless they're a family member with 20+ years of interaction or something. Less sure about BPD.

I mean there's obviously a continuum. Someone who barely meets diagnostic criteria for BPD (or any other disorder) and has decent support systems is going to be easier to treat and improve more quickly/significantly than someone who has every single symptom, dissociates, self harms, and has limited supports.

All we know is "she's diagnosed with BPD". Assuming correct diagnosis, some form of therapy is the standard of care. How much and how fast any sort of improvement (from her baseline, not from the baseline of all BPD patients ever) is seen depends on a ton of variables, none of which we know.

I think OP should consult with a psychologist or other clinician on his own to get a clearer sense of what being in an intimate romantic relationship with a BPD person generally AND HIS GIRLFRIEND SPECIFICALLY would entail. Particularly if she/they want to improve the BPD, he'd need to know what that means in terms of how he reacts to her and what might happen.

@Dids next time you go by the books-a-million check out the DSM (diagnostics statistics manual, you know the same place that called homosexuality a psychotic behavior). Every single disorder in there starts with some nebulous symptoms and confirms with a 'conduct disorder.' ala everyone becomes crazy when they start missing work, become an alcoholic etc. If you spend enough time looking then you will find something wrong.

Yes all women are crazy. All men are crazy. Looked around at the world lately? Crazy is a result of living. This place sucks. Humans are terrible, terrible beings. Speak the truth and there is something wrong with you. Perception is reality.

Reality is crazy, we have to be crazy to deal with it. That's why LOL@atheists. Who are they to think they're sane?

Not saying some people aren't legitimately crazy or more crazy than everyone else, but 95% of people ITT turning their nose up haven't seen enough shrinks to get diagnosed with something.

This is good advice if OP intends to stay in this relationship, but I don't see why OP would opt to do that. It's not like OP has been with this girl for 10 years or has a child with her, he's only been seeing her for 4 months. It would be absolutley crazy for OP not to end it and find a Girl without these types of disorders.

For the curious, the current DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for BPD:

BPD is manifested by a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

- Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).
- A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. This is called "splitting."
- Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
- Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).
- Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
- Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
- Chronic feelings of emptiness.
- Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
- Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.